Monday sucked. I don’t even know how to adequately express the pain. But I’ll tell you that I felt like an idiot almost passing out in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. And it wasn’t the kidney pain, my chest suddenly seized up and I broke into a sweat and couldn’t see.

I was trying to deal with it myself, breathing, walking around, leaning forward… (the guy in the row of chairs across from me was trying not to stare). When I thought I was going down for sure I called up to the receptionist, who was helping someone, and told her I needed help. Suddenly, there were two nurses and a doctor by me, discussing amongst themselves where they were going to put me, because the rooms were full.

I was humiliated. But I didn’t pass out, and I’m guessing it’s because of the anxiety associated with making such a public spectacle.

So, they wheelchaired me out of the lobby into a room, gave me oxygen, put little, electronic beeping things on me to check stuff. My oxygen level was at 70%, and that was after I was feeling better. I didn’t know they could check that.

Anyway, I was prescribed an antibiotic and sent home once they were convinced I could drive safely. The rest of the day was, incredible as it may sound, worse. They didn’t prescribe any pain medication, and I was so out of my wits with pain, I didn’t even think about the fact that I should have some for several hours. I was in bed, writhing, falling in and out of sleep and sweating like a fish.

At around 6 pm, I woke up and thought to take Tylenol, slept for an additional hour, at which point I felt better enough to get out of bed and eat.

Now I have other pains, I’m tired, and I have a follow up appointment in about an hour.

At some point, I’ll have the energy to talk about our weekend. I apologize if I’m neglecting emails. I’ve had a bunch recently, between school stuff, Girl Scouts, Yahoo groups, family matters, and blog queries, I know that some have gone unaddressed. So, email again if you need something, because if you haven’t heard back from me, you’re lost in my inbox.

I’m only writing a blog post right now because I’m trying to kill time before I leave for the doctor in an hour, and all I have the strength to do is writhe and moan. Time crawls when you’re doing nothing but writhing and moaning. So hopefully, by posting, I’ll be a little distracted.

That back pain that showed up on Thursday stayed with me all weekend. I managed it with Tylenol and Advil, and now it’s worse. I called the doctor and they said I might have a kidney infection. I’m miserable. It hurts so bad I’m nauseated.

Anyway, Nate and I had a fantastic weekend, except that neither one of us slept well on that miserable mattress. We both woke up at least 4 times a night, mine made worse by the back/potential kidney pain. And that’s totally unfair, because Nate’s main objective this weekend was to get some good sleep, and I was looking forward to the same, not having Clark to wake me.

I finished knitting the sampler purse, now I need to attach an icord strap.

It sucks in at the bottom, as a result of my getting better with holding the yarns and maintaining tension as I progressed. I have to keep telling myself that it doesn’t matter, because it was a sampler purse to learn a technique. It still bugs me. But it’s pretty.

And that’s all I can write. I have to go lay down. If it gets much worse, I’m not going to be able to drive myself to my appointment, and that would be horribly inconvenient.

I have zillions of pictures from the weekend that I can’t wait to share, once I get my wits back and this pain goes away.

This is tremendously fun. I’m trying to figure out how to knit a sweater for myself that will be flattering because the dropped sleeve,bunchy-ribbing-around-the-hips thing is not going to happen.

Regardless, I’m going to knit one for Clark. And possibly everyone else I can think of. I love it. And the COLOR!!! It’s more than I can resist.

Today is my darling and delightful, brilliant and desirable, charming, witty, amazing, and incredible husband’s birthday. We’re going away. I’m not ready.

So, I wasn’t feeling too good yesterday, and I was totally scrooge-ing on Halloween (which ended up being pretty nice. The girls went out with various friends, and Nate and I enjoyed a quiet dinner before he went back downstairs to work while I knit and waited for trick-or-treaters. Aside from Clark throwing food all over the floor, it was a pleasant evening).

Aaand we’re back.

As I was saying, I wasn’t feeling too good yesterday, so I indulged a little bit and sat down with a book, 5 colors of Lamb’s Pride bits from the stash, and a sampler purse pattern to learn a new knitting technique.

It’s fair isle with one color in each hand, so you throw with the right hand and pick with the left, twisting the yarns around each other such that there aren’t any floats or tangles.

It’s awesome. I love it. I had soooo much fun. I always enjoy knitting, but yesterday, it was something more. It was sheer delight. Glee. Almost like I’d rediscovered the craft.

I’ve finished the color pattern, but I’d like it to be about twice as long, so I’m going to do some improvising. Probably just repeating the pattern but switching the colors around.

I got a picture of Abby in her legwarmers today.

And it’s occurring to me that Abby ends up with a lot more of my handknits than any other single person. I’m not sure how she manages that, because it seems to me that she shows the least interest. My only guess is that somehow, her method of request comes out more as a need than a want. I get suckered in. I’ve GOT to knit for my other children before they start calling “favorites”.

I have SO much to do today. There’s the cleanup from Halloween. I need to clean up from before Halloween. Nate and I are running away tomorrow for the weekend, and there is so much to do to prepare for that, getting everything in order for the kids… I’m tired just thinking about it. And my back hurts. I have no clue what I did, but I’m going to take a hot, epsom salt bath now before I do anything else.